Alsatian Auxiliary Service
The Alsatian Aid Service (EHD) was a political organization in support of the German occupation forces in Alsace , France , founded in 1940 and dissolved in 1941. The EHD was a forerunner organization of the NSDAP .
management
The founder and head of the EHD was Robert Ernst , Air Force Major and Federal Head of the Federation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Reich . The district manager in the Haut-Rhin department (Colmar district) was Paul Maas, Ernst's deputy in the Alsace-Lorraine Federation . District head in the Bas-Rhin department (Strasbourg district) was the Wehrmacht captain Walter Würtz.
history
The Alsatian Aid Service was founded on June 20, 1940 by Robert Ernst in Colmar . 20 people attended the founding meeting. On June 27, the Strasbourg district office began its work in the rooms of the Journal d'Alsace et de Lorraine at 19 rue Thomann ( Thomannsgasse 19 ) and later moved to Place Kléber ( Karl-Roos-Platz ).
On July 15, 1940, the first major rally took place in Strasbourg, at which the EHD presented itself as a political organization for cooperation with the German occupying power. On July 18, 1940, a joint manifesto of the EHD with the "Nanzigern" , a group of Alsatian and Lorraine local politicians, called for the connection of Alsace to Germany ( Manifesto of three ears of corn ). In this manifesto the EHD claimed that it already had tens of thousands of shop stewards in the country.
On August 13, 1940, District Office Manager Maas formulated the tasks and objectives of the EHD as follows:
"1. The EHD is the organizational summary of the German-conscious members of the Alsatian people who have a positive attitude towards the Reich by means of its members who are familiar with the country and locality, an aid organization on the one hand for the state and party offices that are less familiar with the local conditions and on the other for those caused by the side effects of the war representing affected Alsatian population.
2. As the organizational forerunner of the NSDAP, the EHD is intended to form a reservoir for all those Alsatians who are willing and suitable to be accepted into the NSDAP at a later point in time, and is also intended to help establish the NSDAP later on. "
The EHD helped with the repatriation of the Alsatian civilian population evacuated to the south of France, made itself available to the German police and the German secret service for political scrutiny of the population and also carried out anti-French propaganda. EHD shop stewards sat as assessors in the German commissions that had been formed to expel politically undesirable Alsatians. As early as the end of August 1940, the German head of civil administration for Alsace, Robert Wagner, dissolved the EHD district management and transferred the department heads to the NSDAP's newly founded Alsatian sacrificial ring ; the EHD initially continued to work at community level. In mid-October 1940 all shop stewards were assigned to the Alsace sacrificial ring, which practically eliminated the EHD as an independent organization.
In an open letter to Robert Ernst, Wagner declared the EHD to be dissolved with effect from March 22, 1941:
"With the day the NSDAP was founded in Alsace, the time has come when I can, according to your own wishes, give you the order to dissolve the EHD."
literature
- Paul Schall : From the Alsatian auxiliary service to the NSDAP. In: Strasbourg monthly issue (Issue 5, 5th volume), Strasbourg May 1941, pp. 290–294.
- Robert Ernst : Accountability report of an Alsatian. Berlin 1954.
- Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. Stuttgart 1973.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kettenacker, p. 92.
- ↑ Ernst, p. 235.
- ↑ Schall, p. 291.
- ↑ a b Kettenacker, p. 123.
- ^ Hermann Bickler : A special country. Lindhorst 1978, p. 359.
- ↑ Kettenacker, p. 124.
- ↑ Kettenacker, p. 127.
- ↑ Ernst, p. 269.
- ^ Robert Wagner in the Strasbourg Latest News , April 3, 1941. Quoted in: Kettenacker, p. 127.